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An Update On The OpenGL 3 Support In Mesa

11-21-2010, 04:40 PM

Phoronix: An Update On The OpenGL 3 Support In Mesa

While the Mesa software stack has made some steps towards supporting OpenGL 3.x, this free software library used by open-source graphics drivers is still a ways from supporting this industry graphics API thats years old and has already been surpassed by OpenGL 4.x. There hasn't been too much major progress lately on GL3 support, but some think it could be achieved next year. When there is OpenGL 3.0 support in Mesa, it will be released as Mesa 8.0. Regardless, the OpenGL 3 status document for Mesa has been updated...

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Nice! Maybe they'll catch up proprietary drivers' OpenGL support in about 2/3 years (If it doesn't appear a new OpenGL version until there...). But right now, Mesa is still a bit limited in some 3D OpenGL support...

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I guess this just proves that the argument of "if you give out docs, people will implement the features" of some Free Software lunatics is just wrong.

No one's going to code it in time. Money is still needed.

Erm, this post is an example of people implementing something because they have the docs. This has nothing to do with "free software lunatics" or any ideology, this has to do with multiple issues including expertise (the kind of things we're talking about are not particularly mainstream) and time (the the developers who focus on this have other things on their plate).

Though I'm not sure of anyone who says money doesn't help or is irrelevant, only that it is not the only motivation.

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Nice! Maybe they'll catch up proprietary drivers' OpenGL support in about 2/3 years (If it doesn't appear a new OpenGL version until there...). But right now, Mesa is still a bit limited in some 3D OpenGL support...

Except there's a new OpenGL version roughly every 6 months, as of late.

The new compiler infrastructure should hopefully make it a lot easier to bring newer GLSL version online, at least.

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This was in response to various people claiming that the Linux driver model of requiring hardware vendors to open source their drivers and put them in the kernel is a good idea. When vendors don't do that, the next claim is that it's enough for them to open up their docs so that "the community will code the drivers and features."

It doesn't look that way. Proprietary drivers support GL3 for ages now, while the open driver stack is still based on old, outdated specs. IMO this is proof enough that the Linux driver model is wrong and its supporters too. Otherwise the open graphics stack would have been feature complete years ago.